


His Warlord

by brennagawain



Category: Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Original Character(s), Slow Burn, platonic!Reyes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-27
Updated: 2018-12-27
Packaged: 2019-09-28 18:21:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17188046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brennagawain/pseuds/brennagawain
Summary: The Alliance needed weapons to fight the batarian menace, that's what they told her. So they made her into one, no matter how much she didn't want it.Ten years after retiring, Alessandra Beneventi's life has stalled, and when her brother-in-law Reyes Vidal comes calling with an invitation to Andromeda, she answers.But it's harder to leave behind a life of war than it seems...





	His Warlord

*******  
_Long is the way and hard,_  
_that out of Hell leads up to light._  
\- Paradise Lost, _John Milton_  
*******

EDEN PRIME, EARTHDATE FEBRUARY 16TH 2184 CE, 02:18 A.M.

Leaves stirred in the cool night air, hiding the already-muted sound of her footsteps. The later of the two moons gleamed high in the sky, providing more than enough light to see by. She shook her head in somewhat motherly disapproval at the armoured truck full of soldiers that went barrelling past, headlights blazing in the dark; she had not even needed to activate her hardsuit’s camouflage mechanism to avoid being seen. They would never catch their prey, blundering around night-blind like that.

There was hardly any need to walk carefully, with those jackasses storming through the fields making as much noise as they possibly could, but she did anyway, because it was a habit so dyed into her bones that she would have done it even while asleep. Alarms blared in the distance, but she walked until she could no longer hear them, slinking across the pastures bursting with ready-to-harvest wheat, and vanishing into the forest beyond like a shadow in front of the moon.

Pausing, she took stock of the terrain around her, a practiced eye roving over the hills to the east, and the rocky outcropping to the south. Whatever had set off the perimeter alarms would likely run to ground rather than flee endlessly, having nowhere in particular to go… the Alliance boys on the fence had said that it was geth, but she wasn’t sure that she was convinced. You could usually tell geth pretty reliably by the shooting, or at least the horrible humanoid flailing things. Tonight there was neither, just wide-eyed soldiers who’d thought that Eden Prime would be a safe detail, puffing themselves up like housecats in front of a snake in the hope that it would mean they wouldn’t have to fire their weapons.

She couldn’t blame them, she supposed. She’d retired to Eden Prime precisely because she had thought it would be quiet.

She scaled the outcropping easily and wedged herself between two boulders, careful to place her weight so that her suit wouldn’t scrape against them. Fluid as water, she flipped open her Viper, the barrel balanced against her knee, and began her examination of the hills she had been looking at earlier through the scope. It was a cheap, mass-produced thing, a far cry from the sniper rifles she was used to, but it had been all she could afford on a veteran’s pension. And anyway, she’d always thought that if she was lucky, she wouldn’t ever need to use it.

She waited. Nearly motionless, she watched as the moonlight waxed and the trees rustled in the wind. Stones clicked on the hillside. A small furry animal chittered its way through the forest. She counted her breaths: a long, steady inhale for four seconds, then exhale for three, both through the nose to avoid getting fog on the scope in the cold. By the time she counted to 385, she heard a small noise that let her know that her quarry had arrived – the unmistakeable hiss of hydraulics pumping.

Grimly, she readied the rifle to fire. She’d barely believed that there could actually be geth here, but that was all the more reason to deal with them. She estimated that she could get perhaps three shots off before having to relocate, and hoped that it would be enough to thin their ranks, as her cheap pilot’s hardsuit was only about as much armour protection as a stiff leather jacket.

The first machine rounded the hillock into her line of sight, and she let her crosshairs pass over it, waiting for its fellows so as not to waste her element of surprise on just one geth. She counted three more breaths, and no others emerged. Frowning, she tracked the visible one down again, wondering why it was out here alone. It stumbled back and forth, seemingly confused; one moment it would take a few steps in the direction of the settlement, and then the next it would clutch at the hole in its torso and slink back towards the hill, seemingly anxious. She continued to watch, her concern deepening. She could have sworn it was _fretting_.

What was it doing here? Clearly one of the perimeter guards had indeed landed at least one shot, but why had that been enough to deter it? What decision was it trying to make now, seesawing between safety and returning to where it had been injured? There was some kind of weapon strapped to its back, from what she could see, but none in its hands. As she watched, it made no move to retrieve the weapon, apparently entirely consumed by its internal debate.

After 150 more breaths, she decided that waiting and watching wasn’t going to be good enough anymore, but as her finger weighed against the trigger, the geth dropped its hands and raised its face towards the night sky, as if in contemplation of something.

_Not this_ , she thought to herself, lowering the rifle slowly. _You didn’t retire from the army just to fire slugs at some poor bastard out here on his own, staring at the moon. Did it even pull a weapon on the perimeter guards? Or did they fire just because it was geth?_

She eased herself out of her sniper’s nest and extracted the portable signal light from her belt – she’d intended to use it as a kind of signal flare if things had gotten out of hand, but she thought she could probably set it up to blink on and off in morse code with fairly minimal effort. Who knew if the geth would even understand morse, but it was better than chancing her ailing memory at signalling in binary and accidentally insulting its manufacturer or something. She wedged it into the spot where she had been a moment ago, tilting the lens towards the hillside near the geth, and then crept down the outcropping towards the ground. Rule #1 of infiltration was Never Stand Next To A Light Source.

She edged around until she could see the geth without the use of the scope; it seemed to be still caught up in whatever had drawn its attention to the sky, and made no obvious sign that it had noticed her movement. Gritting her teeth, she shouldered the rifle in preparation to fire, just in case, and then activated the light sequence with her omnitool. As soon as the light blinked on, the geth snapped into action, skittering away, but it paused as the light blinked off again. She felt a small surge of something like triumph as the geth took a few steps forward, watching the light, as it flickered through its message.

P A R L E Y P A R L E Y P A R L E Y

The geth seemed indecisive once again for a moment, but it raised a hand in what seemed to be an approximation of a wave, directed at where the signal was coming from, before blinking out its own message in morse code with the light behind its “eye.”

Y E S

Very carefully, since she knew she would startle it, she stood up, keeping the rifle low, and whistled to get its attention, raising one hand in imitation of what it had done before. It jumped back, clearly skittish, but let her step into the clearing without making any aggressive moves. Its fingers twitched a few times, reflexively, and its eye darted around between her and the signal light in a way that made her feel bad for the precautions of her setup. Fear wasn’t exactly something she had been expecting to see.

“Just give me a second to program what I want to say,” she muttered at it, pulling up her omnitool, more because she felt that she had to say something than because she thought it would understand.

“Your language is known to us,” it replied, shocking her.

She opened her mouth to say that she’d never heard of any geth talking, and then closed it again, heart hitching in her chest. Had anybody even _tried?_

“That will make things easier, then,” she said, eventually.

“We are grateful for the opportunity to exchange information,” it went on, its synthesised voice doing surprisingly well at conveying what seemed like earnestness.

“This is all… not what I expected,” she admitted, and then cleared her throat awkwardly. “What are you doing out here, anyway? All alone? You’re obviously not here to fight.”

“Searching,” came the reply, as though that was sufficient.

“For?”

The shutters around its eye opened and closed a few times, and it shook its head, as though debating itself about something. “Something of great value.”

Sighing exasperatedly, she folded up her Viper and returned it to her back, disarming. “Listen, I’m not trying to ferret out secrets here. Do you want help finding this thing you’re looking for? Do you need to talk to somebody else? Do you want to solve this, or keep running around the forest at night?”

“It is no longer on Eden Prime,” the geth replied, shaking its head again. “This platform must leave this planet, but obtaining transportation has been difficult.”

She grunted, believing it. It would be easy enough to stow away in cargo coming to the planet, especially if it was specifically marked for delivery as soon as it landed. Getting back into a shipment on its way out, however…

“None of your people can come and pick you up?” she asked it, although she knew that a geth ship landing on Eden Prime would cause even more uproar.

“This is the only geth platform beyond the Veil,” it answered, managing to sound dejected now.

“Well… shit.”

She chewed on her lip in irritation, as though that would somehow help contain her racing mind. She didn’t exactly have any pull left with the Alliance these days, and certainly not with whoever would be in command of a podunk outfit like the Eden Prime defence force. But she couldn’t stomach the idea of leaving this geth out here to be discovered, or worse, handing it over into Alliance custody. She probably wouldn’t have believed it if the officer in charge had promised her the geth wouldn’t be harmed anyway.

But she’d retired from this shit, damn it! She wasn’t supposed to be out here in the first place, except that she didn’t trust the Alliance to find its own arse with both hands – rightly, it turned out. And now… just over a decade, and the espionage switch flipped like it had never been off. It seemed she really couldn’t get away from they’d made her into.

“Where are you trying to get to?” she asked it, giving in.

“Therum,” it stated, simply, and then continued as though reading from a list. “Feros. Noveria. Virmire. Ilos. Alche-”

“All of those places?” she interrupted, ears pricking up despite her best efforts. “In that order? Or does it not matter?”

The geth spread its hands, as though trying to say that it hardly mattered since it couldn’t even leave Eden Prime, and she bit her lip again, annoyed by the excitement welling up inside her. ‘Back in the saddle’ elation was supposed to be a feeling reserved for horse riding and getting back into the dating pool, not spy work.

“I have a delivery run tomorrow, heading to Noveria,” she told it, against her better judgement, and its eye lit up.

“We would be most grateful for your assistance!”

She sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose, and waved her other hand at it dismissively. “We’ll see if we can even pull it off. I’ll have to come out here and pick you up – are you going to be safe out here on your own until then? Does that weapon work?”

The geth made a small humming noise of discomfort, indicating the hole in its chassis. “It is functional, but this platform requires repairs. The weapon is too heavy for us to wield in this state.”

“Hm,” she replied, frowning, and then a thought struck her. “Want to swap?”

She detached her Viper and held it out in front of her, and the geth hesitated for a long moment before reaching out to accept it, wary again.

“That thing is cheap as shit,” she told it, honestly, as it flipped it open carefully. “But hopefully that means you can handle firing it despite your injury.”

It shouldered the stock and examined the scope, and all the while the shutters around its eye continued to flicker in and out, reminding her almost of eyelashes, like it was blinking. Very slowly, like a lagging video, it closed the rifle again, and then reached up and pulled out its own gun. She wondered if its processing power was busy with something else.

“This exchange is approved, in return for your assistance in leaving Eden Prime,” it declared, as she took hold of the weapon.

It was heavy and grey, made up of overlapping curved shapes somewhat similar to the geth themselves, and particularly the images she had seen of their ships. She faced away from her new friend deliberately so as not to spook it, and let the gun slide open with a menacing hiss. It was a sniper rifle – the barrel was far too long for it to be anything else – but rather than a magazine chamber it housed a mess of tubing and liquid coolant that all pumped towards the business end and was the main reason for its bulk.

“It fires plasma?” she asked, thrilled, and then embarrassed herself by whistling like an amateur enthusiast at a gun show.

She cleared her throat hastily and went about the rest of her inspection pretending to be a professional, while inside she was giggling with glee. The scope was in fact an infrared display that showed heat signatures, including through solid matter like trees and thus probably walls, and the whole weapon was so heavy that she knew it must pack a hell of a punch. If she’d had toys like this back in the Attican Traverse, it might have made her job much easier.

The geth was watching her intently for some reason that she couldn’t tell by the time she turned back, but it didn’t seem to be a _malicious_ kind of scrutiny. She wondered if it had ever had the chance to observe many humans at all, especially from this close up.

“Most of the soldiers stationed here at the moment are just kids,” she told it, after glancing at the sky and deciding it was probably time to return to bed. “A warning shot should get the bulk of them to scatter, but I won’t fault you for defending yourself, I suppose.”

It shrugged, in a surprisingly non-mechanical gesture. “We would prefer to avoid any further discovery, if possible. We will only fire if it appears absolutely necessary.”

She nodded, accepting that. It was honestly more than they should probably have had any right to expect, given that Alliance soldiers had quite literally opened fire on it on sight earlier that night.

“All right,” she said authoritatively, clapping her hands together. “I’d better get going if I want to slip back in before the sun rises. My delivery is scheduled to leave here at 1300 hours, Earth-time. If you listen in on frequency 181.7 I’ll transmit the coordinates where I’ll meet you in morse code, if that works for you?”

“Acknowledged,” it responded simply, and then repeated the attempt at a wave it had done earlier.

She smiled at that, and waved back, before turning away to head home. She had no idea what exactly she’d gotten herself into, but it felt like the right thing to do anyway. She supposed that only time would tell one way or the other.

*******

  


EDEN PRIME, EARTHDATE FEBRUARY 17TH 2184 CE, 13:11 P.M.

The mobile geth platform crouched in the foliage beside the clearing where the human had told them to wait for her. They were confident in their hiding place, and certain of their ability to remain motionless, but sometimes that wasn’t enough. Three patrols of human soldiers had passed by them already that day, and each time they had been concerned about being discovered. They did not feel pain like organics would after being shot, but the hole in their platform was distressing, and it made their hydraulics leak, decreasing their overall efficiency. They wished to avoid it happening again, if possible.

The last communication that their human ally had sent indicated that she would arrive at the clearing shortly after 1300, due to the need for her ship and its cargo to undergo inspection. The time had not yet passed beyond what the geth believed to be a reasonable delay, but they remained cautious all the same, the light plastic sniper rifle that she had given them held at the ready. They had learned to be cautious when dealing with both organics and other synthetics alike.

They felt relief when the small cargo shuttle stopped over the clearing and began to land, a light vessel of joint volus-asari construction favoured by independent long-range pilots, but they did not relax. They tensed when the side door slid open, just in case, but no hostiles burst out. In fact, their human ally did not exit either, merely sticking one hand out of the door, clicking her fingers a few times, and then pointing to indicate that the geth should enter the ship. Their auditory sensors detected that she was speaking with someone.

They analysed the situation. They would have felt more confident that the entire thing wasn’t an ambush if she had stepped out of the ship to greet them, but she had made no particularly suspicious actions thus far. She had also indicated last night that getting off the planet might be difficult, so it was possible that a limited timeframe had caused her brusqueness, and their delay might cause more danger. In any case, the only way to find out was to do as she asked. The geth reached a consensus: they would step into the shuttle, and be prepared to leave hastily if any hostile actions were taken against them.

When their platform stepped inside, the woman nodded at them in greeting, still preoccupied with the conversation that she was having via the ship’s onboard communication systems. She made no move to attack them, so they put away their rifle, and inspected the inside of the shuttle. A small device was attached to the back interior wall adjacent to the engine housing, and their sensors detected slight radiation emissions from it. As they watched, she pried the device off the wall, and the emissions ceased.

“There, how’s that?” she asked her unknown correspondent.

“Reading all clear on our end, Andy,” a male voice, likely human judging by vocal pattern analysis, answered. “No more radiation spikes.”

“Oh, good,” she replied, her voice filled with emotions of relief and worry that did not show on her face. “The drive core had come out of alignment! What an embarrassing mistake to make. I didn’t get any sleep last night what with the alarms and all so I guess I just flubbed my pre-flight checks.”

“Don’t sweat it. We’re all a little on edge today.”

“I’ll just circle back to the inspection depot again before departure, then, if you’ll let them know?”

“You know what, don’t worry about it. You’re already late, just head off.”

“Oh, thank you! You’re a lifesaver!”

“No problem. Bon route, Andy.”

The geth watched this exchange with interest, aware of the concept of lying and that this is what that was, but having never seen it enacted before. She had apparently been successful, and appeared unconcerned, as though she had been confident in her ability to do so. This caused some momentary division among their programs about whether or not she could be trusted; eventually they reached a consensus, deciding that her behaviour patterns last night had been greatly different from these today, and she had likely not deceived them. They did, however, continue to watch her carefully as she closed the door and prepared the shuttle for take-off.

Not counting the height added by her thick, steel-toed boots, she was 179cm tall, and her bulk marked her as of above average muscular definition for human females as per the systems-wide census of 2176. Her skin was the colour of walnut, with small dark eyes and hair of a deep mahogany brown, long enough to reach to the middle of her back even while tied up. Despite the danger of the situation they were currently embroiled in, her movements were relaxed and expansive, flicking switches confidently and leaning back in her pilot’s chair.

ANALYSIS: SURETY. VINDICATION. A SENSE OF VICTORY. INFERENCE: SHE IS PLEASED TO HAVE SUCCEEDED IN HER TASK. SHE COULD NOT YET BE SO CONFIDENT OF SUCCESS IF SHE INTENDED TO HARM THIS PLATFORM. CONCLUSION: BETRAYAL UNLIKELY. INQUIRIES REGARDING ORGANIC BEHAVIOUR PATTERNS APPROVED. DISCERN IF SHE IS WILLING TO DIVULGE INFORMATION.

They took a few steps closer to her, watching out the forward bay window of the shuttle as they cleared the atmosphere of the planet. The geth allowed themselves a small moment of triumph, noting that they had at last been able to leave Eden Prime, before returning their attention to their pilot.

“We request information.”

She did not look up from her flight instruments, merely grunting. “About what?”

The geth were divided on whether or not this was an offer to explain, so they spread their hands, repeating a gesture that she had responded to last night. “The drive core was not out of alignment. You produced that radiation deliberately. You lied.”

She looked up at them then, her eyes narrowed. “It was the only way to con the flight controller into not sending me back to Inspection, like he should have done.”

They remained silent, and after a while she turned away, though she continued talking.

“People usually won’t think that you would lie to make yourself look bad, especially not people that you’ve known for a long time. It’s something you learn, when you spend enough time lying for a living.”

ANALYSIS: SHAME. CONTEXT IMPLIES NOT SHAME FOR THIS ACTION, BUT SIMILAR ONES. INFERENCE: SHE FINDS DECEPTION EASY, BUT PREFERS NOT TO ENGAGE IN IT. CONSENSUS NOT REACHED ON UNDERLYING MOTIVATIONS FOR AIDING THIS PLATFORM. SUGGESTION: CONTINUE INQUIRIES.

“But he will now believe that you are incompetent,” they said, recalling the condescension in the tone of the man’s voice.

“Yeah, and if I hadn’t pulled this off, he’d _believe_ that I should speak with the Alliance officer in charge of the settlement’s defences,” she snapped, her voice rising, but then brought herself back under control. “It’s just the way it goes. Make them think you’re simple, slutty, greedy, incompetent, braindead – whatever, as long as it obscures your true goals. Most times, the people you’re lying to are people you’ll never see again anyway.”

“But you will see him again?” they pressed.

She sighed loudly, exasperated. “It’s really not a big deal. One mistake after years of being fine won’t matter all that much. And even if it does, I can always find work somewhere else.”

ANALYSIS: DISMISSAL. DENIAL. “WHY DEAL TODAY WITH WHAT YOU CAN IGNORE UNTIL TOMORROW.” INFERENCE: THE RISK TO HER IS GREATER THAN SHE WANTS TO ADMIT OR DEAL WITH. CONCLUSION: THE GETH HAVE REASON TO BE GRATEFUL, AND TO TRUST. FURTHER INQUIRIES REGARDING MOTIVE AND METHOD MAY BE UNDERTAKEN SAFELY, IN ORDER TO BETTER UNDERSTAND ORGANIC LIFEFORMS.

“We have other inquiries.”

She let out a short, barking laugh, her annoyance dissipating. “You’re worse than an eight-year-old. Go ahead.”

“We searched through extranet files, looking for you,” they told her, unsure as to how she would react. “You are Beneventi, Major, Alliance, Armed Forces.”

“I was, a long time ago,” she replied slowly, her grip tightening on her instruments. “Not anymore. I’m still Beneventi, I mean, Alessandra Beneventi. Just not a Major. How were you poking around in Alliance classified files?”

They inspected her closely, watching her knuckles whiten as she clenched her fists. They saw no reason as to why she would restrain herself if her anger was with them, which indicated that they were safe to continue, though she clearly was not pleased with this topic of discussion.

“Their encryption was easily circumvented,” they said, in answer to her question, and shrugged.

She snorted, rolling her eyes. “Typical.”

ANALYSIS: CONTEMPT. CONTEXT INDICATES CONTEMPT NOT FOR THE GETH, BUT FOR THE SYSTEMS ALLIANCE. INFERENCE: NEGATIVE ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE SYSTEMS ALLIANCE THE RESULT, OR POSSIBLY CAUSE, OF RETIREMENT. CONCLUSION: NO FURTHER INQUIRY ON THIS TOPIC NECESSARY. CONTINUE WITH PREVIOUS QUESTIONING.

They clapped their hands together briefly in imitation of a gesture she had made last night, something to indicate setting the conversation back on track. “We wish to know why you chose to aid us.”

“Well… it was obvious that we don’t know much about your people,” she muttered, turning away from their platform as if trying to avoid the simulation of eye contact. “I don’t know what you do with your… dead, your… deactivated, or whatever. I thought maybe you were here to recover the bodies, or platforms, of the geth that died here last year.”

They took stock of the situation, having not expected that answer.

ANALYSIS: SINCERITY. INFERENCE: CONSENSUS NOT REACHED. MORE INFORMATION REQUIRED.

“And you would have aided in this?” they asked, their programs divided evenly between reactions of scepticism and amazement.

She sighed dourly, continuing to face away from them. “You read my files, you know where I was stationed. Alone on just about every godforsaken hellhole in batarian space, limited contact with the outside world. Nobody would know if I got my brains shot out or was eaten by space lizards or died of pneumonia. In my line of work, coming home is a rare luxury, whether alive or not. I can’t count the number of my former colleagues whose files now read ‘Missing In Action, Presumed Dead.’ You get a chance to change that for somebody, you do it. It doesn’t matter if you’ll end up in a shoot-out with today’s messenger tomorrow. It’s about closure. Closure that a lot of people don’t ever get.”

They listened to her speech, hearing the passion in her voice, and felt as though a profound understanding about organics was just out of their reach. The geth did not value their platforms in the way that Beneventi, Major had guessed, at least not any more than they would value any other specially-designed piece of hardware, but she had believed that it would be valid for them to do so.

ANALYSIS: SINCERITY. DEEPLY-HELD BELIEFS SHAPED BY EXPERIENCE. ADHERENCE TO A CODE. INFERENCE: BENEVENTI, MAJOR LIKELY TO HONOUR AGREEMENT MADE TO FACILITATE TRANSPORT TO NOVERIA. UNLIKELY TO REVEAL THIS PLATFORM’S LOCATION OR STATED FUTURE DESTINATIONS TO HOSTILES. CONCLUSION: FOR AS LONG AS THIS PLATFORM REMAINS IN NO DANGER, FURTHER DIALOGUE WOULD BE ADVANTAGEOUS. EXPLANATION OF THIS PLATFORM’S SEARCH MAY ELICIT REACTIONS THAT COULD YIELD VALUABLE DATA.

“We have seen that designation on other Alliance soldiers’ files,” they stated, emboldened. “Shepard, Commander, Alliance, Navy is designated Missing In Action, Presumed Dead.”

“Yeah? I suppose that makes sense. I never heard about them recovering her body,” she responded, and then paused for a moment, a brief hint of suspicion entering her voice. “Why were you reading _Shepard’s_ files?”

They hesitated anxiously before answering, hoping that they would not change her opinion of them. “It is Shepard, Commander that we are searching for.”

“Really?” she asked, genuine surprise in her voice for the first time in the conversation. “Wasn’t she just about your greatest enemy? Why look for her after she’s already died?”

“To understand,” they declared, simply, as that was the extent of their own understanding of the goal as well.

“Hm,” she said in response, and then fell silent.

ANALYSIS: CONFUSION? UNLIKELY. BENEVENTI, MAJOR HAS INQUIRED ABOUT PREVIOUS SUBJECTS THAT SHE FELT REQUIRED CLARIFICATION. RE-ANALYSE.

ANALYSIS: RETICENCE. UNWILLINGNESS TO OFFEND WITH QUESTIONS. ACCEPTANCE OF DIFFERENCES BETWEEN ORGANIC AND SYNTHETIC THINKING. WILLINGNESS TO ACCEPT WITHOUT THE NEED FOR UNDERSTANDING. INFERENCE: CONSENSUS NOT REACHED. INSUFFICIENT EXPERIENCE INTERACTING WITH ORGANIC LIFEFORMS WITH THIS ATTITUDE. SUGGESTION: SEEK OUT ORGANICS WITH SIMILAR BACKGROUNDS TO BENEVENTI, MAJOR IN ORDER TO FACILITATE BETTER UNDERSTANDING.

After some time, she twisted around in her chair to face their platform again, her expression grave. “Listen, if you find her, do me a favour and consider letting the Alliance know where she is. She deserves to come home.”

The geth inspected her face once more, finding nothing that changed their previous analysis. The information that they had gathered over the course of this conversation was already neatly cached in a database on Rannoch, duplicated and shared among every geth program in existence, but even all together they still could not understand why she was different than all the other organics they had encountered. What they did agree on was this: she had taken risks for them, and she had been willing to allow them to retrieve damaged platforms if that had been their wish, and so the invocation of the favour was approved. Summarily, they also moved their objective to seek out organics with backgrounds similar to her several slots higher in their prioritisation algorithm.

“We will,” they replied, and meant it.

“Do you want to have a seat?” she asked them easily, returning her attention to the flightpath. “It’s not exactly a short trip.”

“The geth do not tire,” they told her, but they sat down beside her regardless, carefully folding their platform into the chair. “The geth also do not use windows. They are a structural weakness.”

She grinned at them, apparently pleased by their accepting her offer. “The view ain’t half bad though, right?”

They could not reach a consensus either way at that, but they didn’t seem to need to. Some things could be accepted without the need for understanding.

*******

  


NOVERIA, EARTHDATE FEBRUARY 17TH 2184 CE, 22:43 P.M.

Andy leaned listlessly against the bar in the hotel, staring at her empty whiskey glass. There was no uproar yet, no blaring alarms, but she wondered if the security here would be more professional than the Eden Prime boys, and try not to upset their guests. She had little worry that the geth would give away her part in things if questioned – and why would the soldiers question something they didn’t even know could speak? – but she found the idea of it being shot to pieces saddening.

It deserved better than that, but then again, didn’t everyone? Perhaps all the geth had deserved better. It was too late now to ask. All she could do at this stage was wish it well.

“You look like you’re waiting for someone,” a voice said behind her, jolting her out of her contemplation rudely.

“Sweet Christ,” she muttered, clutching at her suddenly-racing heart with one hand and waving for the bartender to bring her another drink with the other. “Don’t sneak up on me like that, you git.”

The interloper, Reyes Vidal, grinned at her, clearly pleased with himself. “Listen, I get very few chances to surprise you of all people. I have to take any I can get!”

“What are you doing in this shithole?” she asked him, and then downed her new whiskey in one gulp.

He raised his eyebrows at her drinking. “I could ask you the same question.”

She made a move as if to tuck her hair back behind her ears, tapping subtly on one to indicate that they were being listened to, and that she couldn’t answer for that reason. She was faintly amused by the way his eyes lit up instantly with curiosity.

“Are you going to bug me for a ride home?” she continued, as though nothing had happened, and he grinned once more.

“What else are sisters-in-law for?”

Andy didn’t know how the terminology was supposed to change between in-laws when the link between them died. Divorce, at least, was clear – the law no longer bound you together through the marriage, so you were just back to being acquaintances. Somehow, though, in the ten or so years since Andy’s husband Luis had gone missing on assignment in the Traverse, she and Reyes had never really fallen out of being siblings-in-law. Maybe they were secretly still hoping that he would show up again one day.

Andy’s thoughts strayed to her conversation with the geth earlier, and felt her mouth pull into a thin, sour line. Or maybe not-so-secretly.

“Are you… all right, Lessa?” Reyes asked, surprising her. “You don’t seem well.”

She laughed half-heartedly, trying not to think of what a mess she must look. “Sorry. It’s been a long… more than a day. Where are you headed? I could do with getting the hell out of here.”

He shrugged good-naturedly. “Well, I’m aiming for Caleston, but I’ll settle for anywhere warmer than here.”

They made small-talk as they made the trip towards where Andy’s shuttle was docked, idle chitchat about how his mother had asked after her and how his work had been busy recently. The cold steel walls felt stifling; now that Reyes was here, she wanted desperately to talk about everything that had happened, but there was always someone listening on Noveria. She wouldn’t be safe even talking to herself.

Andy had always liked watching Reyes. Unlike Luis, who had always been loud – always been laughing – he was by nature a quiet man, but it was the kind of quiet that seemed to take up more space than it really did. His body language was loud: the swagger, the expansive hand gestures and open arms, the confident walk. But it was all a part of the game, just a set of illusions activated anytime his ‘business’ switch was set to on. Get him in private and he was happy to sit for hours in silence, just thinking, the same as her.

She admired his ability to change like that. She was skilled enough at tamping herself down, making herself seem less dangerous than she was, but Reyes knew how to walk like everybody should want to know who he was. Andy had it on good authority that she, on the other hand, walked like somebody had grudgingly attached legs to a chunk of steel rebar.

“So, what brought you out to Noveria?” she asked him, once they were safely back on her ship.

“Oh, nothing even remotely exciting,” he replied, sighing despondently. “And more’s the pity. You become a smuggler and you think it’s going to be all _exotic goods_ and _dangerous cargo_. Then you come here and the corporate bigwigs tax all imports so heavily that people will pay me to smuggle in regular food. Soap. Their daughter’s favourite stuffed toy. It’s all very boring.”

She snorted in amusement, fully aware that he smuggled much more dangerous things for other people most other days of the week. “It’s a living, at least.”

He grinned slyly at her, leaning forwards like a conspirator. “Honestly, I’m more interested in what you were doing here. Every time I’ve tried to send an offer of work your way in the past, you’d get all grumpy and go on about how you’ve retired.”

She sunk down deeper in her pilot’s chair, glowering. “I am not grumpy! And I did retire!”

“I see that,” he replied, unperturbed, and then laughed at the face she made.

“Anyway, it wasn’t really… work, exactly,” she told him, surprised by the wave of regret that had washed over her. “I had to help a… friend, I suppose… get off Eden Prime without being noticed.”

“I take it everything went well?”

She sighed heavily, trying to sift through the emotional turmoil that had welled up inside her. “ _Too_ well, honestly. Even after all this time I spent deliberately staying away, all the old routines were still there, just below the surface, etched into me like stone. I didn’t think it would be like this. I didn’t think I would feel it _pulling_ on me, like some kind of demon temptress from an old shitty fantasy movie. How do you leave something behind when it’s what they carved you out of?”

She trailed off, having not meant to say even half of what she had done. Whatever it was about the whole situation that had her so conflicted, it had apparently decided to burst out of her, like an overflowing river. She could feel Reyes’ eyes on her, searching, but she determinedly didn’t meet them. It wasn’t his job to find answers for her, and she was embarrassed that he had even heard the questions.

Eventually he settled back into his seat, though it felt like a cloud had descended between them.

“Listen, Lessa,” he began, after several minutes of silence. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you. For a while, actually.”

Her eyes flicked over towards him, concerned suddenly. “Well _that_ sounds ominous.”

“I’m… going to be going away soon, for a while,” he went on, his voice grave. “I meant to track you down to say goodbye, but after tonight, I’m wondering if you’d like to come with me.”

She turned away from her instruments to look at him, trying to search his face for clues. Was he talking about running underground to lie low for some reason? He didn’t look afraid, but then, would she be able to see it, even if he was? That was the problem with this kind of life, she thought to herself grimly, with the kind of people that they both were, no matter how she tried to push it away. You never knew when it was all going to catch up to you.

But it was always coming.

“How do you mean, going away?” she asked, eventually, finding no answers on his face. “Like going into hiding? Is something going on?”

He waved his hands dismissively, catching her meaning. “No, no, nothing like that. It’s more like a… colony project. A _very ambitious_ colony project. It would be a new start, in a place far away from here. No Alliance. No ties to what we leave behind.”

She licked her lips nervously, unsure how to process this. “You’re not serious about this, are you?”

He ran a hand through his hair, flashing her an embarrassed half-smile. “I’ve never been more serious in my life.”

“Why?”

“Nearly eleven years, waiting on a ghost, Lessa,” he said softly, his gaze piercing into her as he spoke. “Both of us just going through the motions, for _eleven years_. We need to move on. And if that means leaving this whole life behind and rebuilding myself as someone completely new, then so be it. I’m ready. And you should be, too.”

She fought down the urge to swear, to lose her temper and punch something, because deep-down she knew that she was just sleep-deprived and irritable. But how else was she supposed to feel, when over the past few days everyone had become so determined to dredge up things that she had spent the last decade burying? Everything was coming apart at the seams all of a sudden, and she didn’t know where to start trying to mend any of it.

“What the hell would I do on a colonial project, Reyes?” she protested feebly, not sure what he wanted from her.

He frowned impatiently at her, not willing to let her slink away from his challenge. “You could run freight, like you’re doing now. You could pull a security job. Shit, you could become a farmer! You can do whatever the hell you want!”

“I don’t know, Reyes,” she countered, honestly, and then cleared her throat, ashamed of the naked fear in her voice.

“Suit yourself,” he declared sharply, folding his arms across his chest.

She tried to mull it over while he sat there fuming, but she barely knew where to start. It was true that her current life wasn’t really going anywhere, though she’d known many Alliance veterans who were worse off. The idea that you were supposed to do something that you enjoyed, that you _wanted_ , with your life, seemed naïve, but presumably it worked for people who hadn’t been broken into pieces.

She sighed, frustrated. Knowing that Reyes was right didn’t help – he’d have been right even five or six years ago, but that wasn’t the issue here. The problem was that hope was difficult, and often dangerous. Even if you were supposed to hope for a better life instead of simply the one in front of you, where did that lead? The past was still always catching up, and it would get there in the end, no matter how happy you could manage to be in the meantime.

“Have you told your mother yet?” she asked him, trying to imagine what the diminutive Chilean lady would have to say about this mess, and allowed herself a small laugh as he vehemently shook his head.

“Ha! You must be joking! No, that goodbye I’m saving for last. Give her as little time as possible to lock me up and keep me from getting away. I’ll probably call her from the ship.”

“Is anyone else we know going to be there?” she pressed, still unsure about whether to even buy into whatever he was selling.

Apparently amused by her scepticism, he shrugged in feigned nonchalance. “Mm, well… rumour has it that the turians are courting Barro and Rix. Not sure if _they_ would catch your interest, though.”

“Hm,” she said thoughtfully, wondering how their friends had gotten tangled up in whatever this was, and he laughed at her again, his momentary bad mood forgotten.  


“You didn’t really think it would just be the two of us out there, did you?”

“All right, Reyes,” she said, at last. “I’m listening.”

He leaned over towards her, eyes shining with barely-contained excitement. “What do you know about Andromeda?”

*******


End file.
